Dems win non-federal statewide offices in Georgia for first time in 20 years

Democrats were projected to score a major victory on Tuesday night by winning a pair of statewide offices in Georgia the first time in 20 years Democrats have won in a non-federal office in that state. The candidates, Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard, were elected to seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, defeating incumbent Republican commissioners Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson. The Georgia Public Service Commission is a body that oversees utilities in the state, including electricity, natural gas, and telecommunications infrastructure. Democrats’ victory comes at a time when energy prices around the country have surged. President Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of abundant energy, but almost immediately after taking office, his administration worked to roll back approval for clean energy projects and create new regulatory hurdles for additional ones. While Georgia has become a battleground state in recent years, voting for former President Joe Biden in 2020 before flipping to Trump in 2024, while in multiple elections choosing Democrats for the Senate, Republicans have, for over a decade, held a monopoly on non-federal state-level offices. The Public Service Commission victory precedes a high-profile midterm election year in which Democrats hope to compete for the governor’s mansion and a number of other row offices. In particular, Geoff Duncan, the former Republican lieutenant governor, defected to the Democratic Party after years of opposition to Trump and has launched a gubernatorial campaign.

‘Unintimidated’ Jack Smith vows to present case against Trump: report

Former Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith reportedly has told people close to him that he is not intimidated by the Trump DOJ’s reported investigation into his activities and is looking forward to presenting the public case he made against now-President Donald Trump.“Mr. Smith, the special counsel who twice indicted Mr. Trump, appears unintimidated by the president’s demand that Republican lawmakers investigate him and that the Justice Department put him in prison for as-yet unproved and unspecified crimes,” The New York Times reported on Monday. Smith, in an early October interview with fellow former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, said: “The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case, or who got chosen, is ludicrous.”“Smith also said that he had ‘tons of evidence’ that Mr. Trump had willingly retained the classified documents at his residence in Mar-a-Lago and tried ‘to obstruct the investigation.’”According to those in his “orbit,” Smith is looking forward to presenting the evidence against Trump from the two cases that were scuttled by the U. S. Supreme Court’s immunity ruling and that of a highly controversial federal judge’s decision“Mr. Smith, who spent more than two years aggressively collecting evidence to prove Mr. Trump mishandled classified documents and tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, appears eager to publicly challenge a foundational pillar of MAGA canon: that the president was a sinned-upon innocent who did nothing to deserve scrutiny, much less two prosecutions,” according to the Times, which notes that Smith now sits atop Trump’s “prosecutorial hit list,” along with former Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Smith had been prosecuting Trump on two separate fronts. The so-called classified documents case and the 2020 election interference case. Last week, President Trump alleged on social media that “Documents show conclusively that Christopher Wray, Deranged Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, and other crooked lowlifes from the failed Biden Administration, signed off on Operation Arctic Frost.”“They spied on Senators and Congressmen/women, and even taped their calls. They cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election. These Radical Left Lunatics should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!” Trump claimed. Also last week, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee urged their Republican chairman, Chuck Grassley, to call on Smith to testify publicly.

Dr. Oz and FDA chief say biosimilar drug reform will lower prices

Trump administration officials pledged Monday that major reforms for biosimilar drug approvals will expand access and lower prices for some of the most expensive drugs on the market. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz outlined further details about the Trump administration’s plan to slash [.].